December 5, 2017

Email to mom:


Our goals for December... we set some pretty high goals as a mission and we set some pretty good goals as a district too! 

As a mission, we set goals for all of the key indicators. We set a goal for 30 baptisms and 74 people on date and 500 people at sacrament meeting and 308 new investigators for the month of December. Pretty lofty goals. We are also preparing for January to be miracle month. Our goals are to help 50 people be baptized, and to have 100 people on date for baptism, to have 600 people at sacrament meeting, and to find 500 new investigators. Super lofty goals!!! But we are excited. We are having faith that God will be able to use us to accomplish these goals. We are trying to be as obedient and diligent as possible because we want to make sure the Spirit can be with us as we try to bless the lives of the people in this mission. Last month we set a mission record for baptisms in a single month! We had 34. It was so cool. We have a mission motto now: “One eye. One faith. One baptism”. It’s from Mosiah 18. We are actually going to get mission T-Shirts with the motto on it. I’m super stoked.

Elder Shellman and I have made some goals to live the safeguards and to work hard as well. Something that we like to do is to keep track of the hours we are able to spend proselyting every day. We don’t count hours spent doing service, or studies, or meals. We can usually get about 5-6 hours of proselyting in. If you think about it, you have 11 hours in a proselyting day, 1 hour of which is dinner, and another hour for comp study. So now ou have 9 available hours. Don’t forget lunch and the 12 week program for new missionaries (because Elder Shellman is fresh out of the MTC) so now we have 8 available hours in the day. If we do any service or have any meetings, then we have to take out probably an hour or two. So the day gets filled up pretty quickly. You have to factor in bathroom breaks and driving time as well, so the day just gets super full super fast. I am striving to be as diligent as possible, and tracking proselyting time definitely helps me. Yesterday we had 4 hours of proselyting time. We also had 3 hours of service, a 1.5 hour meeting, dinner, 12 week, and comp study. So we were literally perfect with our time yesterday. That felt good.  I think I will probably finish my mission as his companion.



My "mission sons", Elder Shellman & Elder Hatch






Weekly planning

It is gross to me to think about my travel plans home. Ew. But there is less than 3 months left. Yikes. I am excited to see you guys again, but I don’t know how to not be a missionary. I honestly won’t know what to do with myself all day.

This week I had a great experience with prayer. I took the time this Sunday to kneel and pray, and I thought about each sentence as I said it. It was a totally different feeling, and it was awesome. My prayer had meaning to it. Instead of me just kneeling down and saying the same old thing and then wondering why I didn’t feel refreshed or connected with heaven, I understood that although I sincerely wanted to have my prayers be a good experience, I didn’t really mean all of the things I was saying. I was just kinda saying things to say them, and hoping that I would feel good from my prayer. 

My spiritual thought this week comes from Alma 27:18. I love this scripture. 

“Now was this not exceeding joy? Behold, this is the joy which none receiveth save it be the truly penitent and humble seeker of happiness”.

This week I have really learned that true joy is only found in Jesus Christ. We can’t find it any other way. Helaman 5:12 has taken on new meaning to me recently. How do we build on the Rock of our Redeemer? It is by living the doctrine of Christ. 

I have a testimony that the Book of Mormon is from God. Because I know that the Book of Mormon is true, I know that Jesus is the Christ and that He is our Savior and Redeemer. He has bought us with a precious price. What a beautiful thing to think about. It makes me sad but also it makes me very grateful. I can’t comprehend the amount of love that He has for us. He didn’t complete His Atonement so He could look good or earn power and glory to Himself, he completed it simply because He loves us. It makes me think about what my motivations are. 

Thanks for sharing those thoughts on Alma 5! I love that chapter :) I will do that reflection thing. I really like that talk from Elder Ballard. 

What you said about Elder Christofferson reminded me about President Uchtdorf’s talk from April “The Greatest Among You”. He has a very similar experience that he shared at the very beginning of the talk. So cool. 

Love you Mom! I’m excited to talk to you guys in a couple of weeks.

Love,

Elder Bush




Creepy Christmas decoration!